Fathers and Mothers: Devotions from Time of GraceNäide

Parenting: Love to Serve When we enter into some kind of personal interaction with other people, it’s generally because we expect to get something out of it--isn’t it so? If shopping and dating weren’t pleasurable, if we didn’t get a lot out of it, we wouldn’t do it. Here’s the heart of a happy home (and it comes as a rude shock to many): neither marriage nor parenting works if you are not willing to become somebody else’s servant. That’s hard. Oh, man, that’s hard. I’m still working on it. But a servant attitude not only works; it is the only proper attitude for people who have been saved from death and hell by a servant named Jesus Christ. The Bible says that he emptied himself of all his divine glory and perks and made himself our slave. He dares to call us not only to faith in him but also to a life like his. Here are hard words but healing words: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:3-5). Tell me the truth--do you think of yourself as a servant in your home?